Tiken Jah Fakoly, a well-known reggae artist who’s been based in Bamako’s Niamakoro neighborhood for the past several years, just released a single entitled “An ka wili” or “Let us rise up,” urging Malians to unite against the Islamists who have taken over the north of their country.

True to form, Tiken Jah grounds his call to action in Mali’s precolonial history. Below is my own translation of the lyrics to “An ka wili”:

Mali will slip away from us [Mali bè na taa k’an to] / Kidal will slip away from us / Timbuktu will slip away from us

Chorus: Let us rise up, let us rise up, if we don’t rise up, Mali will slip away from us

Where have the descendants of Tieba gone? / Where have the descendants of Samory gone?

Where have the descendants of Sunjata gone? Where have the descendants of Da Monzon gone?

Samory Touré, great African warrior, synonymous with resistance against the colonizers, Mali!

Sunjata Keita, King of Mandé, who brought the peoples together, founder of the Mandé empire, Mali!

Rise up! The day has come!

Tiken Jah Fakoly, Pan-Africanist icon

There’s nothing unusual about these lyrics’ heavy historical content: in my previous post, and in a recent scholarly article, I’ve referred to the role that Mali’s legendary precolonial rulers and heroes continue to play in the nation’s political imagination. What may appear unusual, at least to outsiders, is that Tiken Jah is not Malian: he was born and raised in Odienné, in northwestern Côte d’Ivoire. He only left his native country in 2003, after his outspoken criticism of the nativist doctrine called ivoirité earned him death threats from the supporters of then-president Laurent Gbagbo.

In other settings it would probably be strange to see a non-citizen leading calls for nationalist mobilization. (Could “God Bless the USA” have been recorded by Michael Bublé or Celine Dion? Could “The Rising” have been written by Bruce Cockburn instead of Bruce Springsteen?) But the collective sentiments to which Tiken Jah’s lyrics appeal don’t correspond neatly to the modern Malian nation-state: they cite the names of kings and warriors — Sunjata, Samory, Sumaoro and others — who ruled over territories encompassing much of present-day Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, and Burkina Faso; notably, they also cite Sonni Ali, who conquered areas stretching from Senegal to northern Nigeria, and whose capital was Gao, the largest city occupied by Islamist militias today.

(Bamakois have embraced Tiken Jah as one of their own, but his activism on behalf of Mali’s national unity only gives ammunition to his critics in Côte d’Ivoire, who claim he’s not a true Ivoirian anyway. As Sasha Newell demonstrates in his new book about “nouchi” youth culture in Abidjan, a large number of urban Ivoirians regard anyone wearing a boubou as unfit for citizenship in their country.)

When Tiken Jah sings “Let us rise up,” he’s primarily addressing citizens of modern Mali; his video was produced in Bamako, after all, and it is Malian people of various walks of life (laborers, soldiers, seamstresses, civil servants, youths, street vendors) who appear in it. But the singer is also framing himself as a descendant of those illustrious forebears who united the populations of many ethnicities and localities, and who led opposition to foreign domination. (Note that in Bamako, the Islamists are widely perceived to be non-Malians, and indeed many of the leaders of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and its offshoot MUJAO are from Algeria and Mauritania.)

Tiken Jah’s secondary audience might be citizens of neighboring countries who take their inspiration from some of the same founding figures, and whose governments could support a multinational military offensive to take back the Malian regions now under Islamist control. The “An ka wili” video is also replete with Pan-Africanist symbolism, from the red, green and gold colors to the outline of the continent. It speaks to a broad range of loyalties to unite listeners in opposition to the Islamist threat.

“I’m calling for a general mobilization,” the singer told the AFP. “Mali has known great men, great empires and it is unimaginable to leave the country divided as it is today. Malians must count first on their own strengths.”

Tiken Jah’s message is in line with the public mood in Bamako (on which I reported in my previous post), where people are fed up with waiting for outside assistance to reunify their country. I doubt that any attempt to mobilize the Malian people can succeed without making reference to the kinds of historical imagery presented in “An ka wili.” Interim President Dioncounda Traoré and his speechwriters should take note.

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Following the example of journalist and fellow Mali RPCV Peter Tinti, below I suggest a few notable English-language press items on the situation in Mali:

Postscript, Jan. 19: A group of Malian artists calling themselves “Voices United for Mali” has released a song “Mali-ko/Peace” (see the video). The group includes Tiken Jah, Fatoumata Diawara, Amadou and Mariam, Oumou Sangaré, Bassekou Kouyaté, Vieux Farka Touré, Djelimady Tounkara, Toumani Diabaté, Khaira Arby, Kassé Mady Diabaté, Baba Salah, Afel Bocoum, Amkoullel and Habib Koité among many others. Meanwhile, Bamako Hebdo features a write-up on a new single by rapper Master Soumy, of Sofas de la Republique fame, entitled “Sini yé kêléyé” (Tomorrow is a fight), which he calls “a song dedicated to the Malian army, dedicated to mobilizing the people behind their army.”

This video of Tike Jah Fakoly have the looks of his old video like Françafrique, I wonder if this is because of the political situation of the country. Maybe his video team is out the country or he rush himself to film something for people to wili sisan. (stand-up now)
Il say that to Tiken: Doni doni kononi be nyaga da (Petit à petit l’oiseau fait son nid or little by little the bird make is nest) This bird can’t be extreme islamism or neo-colonianlism because a bird is flying in the air. Extremism is like a bird in a cage. Je dis non!